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Workers building a home in Rancho Santa Fe. (Sam Hodgson / Bloomberg / December 21, 2012) |
This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.
Sales of newly built homes slipped in December from the month before but were still up from a year earlier, the government reported Friday.
New homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 369,000 units, down 7.3% from November but up 8.8% from December 2011, the Commerce Department said. The median new-home sales price last month was $248,900.
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For all of 2012, the government estimates that 367,000 new homes were sold, up 19.9% from 2011.
Inventory of newly built homes remains tight. At the end of December a total of 151,000 new homes were available for sale, representing a supply of just about five months at the current sales pace.
[For the record: 9:35 a.m., Jan. 25: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said sales of newly built homes were up 7.3% in December compared with November. They were down 7.3%.]
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